


A Serpent's Tooth

by Morbane



Category: Dragon Prince Trilogy - Melanie Rawn
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 11:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/609384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/pseuds/Morbane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sionell and Pol understand each other too well for comfort. (Moments from <em>Star Scroll</em> and <em>Sunrunner's Fire</em>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Serpent's Tooth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tielan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/gifts).



> With thanks to a fellow Yuletide author for brainstorming & canon help.

Sionell and Pol rode together along the road to Skybowl: they, and her mother and father and brother, and Pol’s retainers, and the High Prince and High Princess themselves. For all that Pol’s mare was Radzyn-bred, she was yet unused to him, and Pol had been warned not to gallop, so as the trail emerged from the dunes and widened on rockier ground, Sionell, on her more confident pony, managed to work her way up to his side.

Pol ignored her, of course, as he had on the journey to Skybowl. It wasn’t fair, but she knew enough to let him think he was scoring a point. “Pick your battles,” her father reminded her, when he played chess with her. He always won – but then Feylin always beat Walvis in turn, and Sionell had the feeling that there was more to learn from that than from what her father directly said. 

She was close enough to see him wince, just slightly, as he dismounted on the harsh sand, and couldn't pass up the chance for a jibe. "Some prince of the desert," she said. "Guess you were at Greypearl too long."

Since she was still ahorse, Pol had to look up to scowl at her - but, remembering their fight only a day ago, and how his mother had caught them at it, he chose to make light. "Ah, but I _am_ a prince," he said, "and princes delegate. What use this mare if she couldn't cross the desert for me?"

His words conjured up a stirring scene: a man captured, perhaps by the Cunaxans, and a horse devotedly seeking her rider across the length of the Long Sand. For a moment, she was lost in the romance of it. Pol smiled wryly at her, as if making a joke on himself, and then slipped around his mare's head, where she, in the close press, could no longer follow him. No, it was she who was mocked by his easy smile. Arrogant boy. She sat forlorn on her pony's back as the adults bustled around her, outmanoeuvred by them all.

* * *

The day after, returning from the dragons' mating, his charm came even easier to him as he recounted what he'd seen. Sionell had never seen the dragons dance, and nor, before this, had Pol; when he'd left for fostering by Lleyn, he'd been the age she was now. His enthusiasm made him shine. 

She knew she was too easily impressed by him, and he not at all by her, but who _wouldn't_ like Pol? Even the folk of Skybowl, hardened like her mother by the desert, opened up to him, so why shouldn't she? And if he didn't appreciate her, that was _his_ fault. The heart of a loyal vassal should never be taken for granted. Sioned had told her that.

"Did you see the dragons' graveyard?" she asked, with a point in mind.

Pol looked puzzled. "No," he said. "The dragons don't mate near where they die."

Sionell flushed. She _knew_ that, she just had wanted to lead up to what she wanted to say... well, never mind. "Have you ever seen their bones, when they've been lying out in the desert so long they're almost part of the sand?"

He frowned, only humouring her. "I've seen a skull," he said, "before I went to Greypearl."

"Then you'll know what this is," Sionell said triumphantly, bringing a prize out from wrapped cloth. A knife made from a dragon's tooth, it shone like jewelry from her polishing. The blade had no edge, but its point was wickedly sharp. "I made it for you."

"You did?" he said dubiously. Sionell bit her lip.

"All by myself," she lied - Feylin had helped her, but now the simple act of giving it to him wasn't enough. "You have to soak it in a tincture to get the stains off, and then you have to rub it with fruit skin until it doesn't feel chalky any more, and then you polish it down with the cloth the goldsmiths use." She hoped he wasn't going to ask about the hilt.

"Well," Pol said smugly, airily, "if it's as easy as you say, I suppose I could make my own..."

He'd tricked her. About ready to slam her hand down on the ground between them in fury, she caught that impulse and held it. She _wouldn't_ let this proud boy hurt _her_ pride. 

"I suppose you don't want it, then," she said.

"I don't need it, Sionell, really," he said gently, grateful to be released from obligation to her. "I already have fine knives."

"Some prince of the desert," she said softly then, slowly, dragging out her revenge with the finest words she knew, "to refuse a gift from his vassal, and leave a wronged woman at his back, holding a knife."

She left him sputtering as she strode out, stiffening her small frame as best she could. At least she'd had the last word.

* * *

For once, she didn't _want_ the last word.

They were high in Stronghold's Flametower, and the Pol before her was an anguished child as sharp as shattered glass. "Pol, how _could_ you," she snarled, disgusted that his rage could be so wide-ranging, that he could balance his whole life against a revelation, that his gratitude paid out so short a way. She wanted to mock him for the idea that his life was hollow-pointed: _she_ knew his truths, as he knew hers. 

Truly, she knew more about loyalty and gratitude than he ever would. This boy would rage, and pity himself, and howl it out, and come to calm in time. Meanwhile, Sioned, for whom Sionell had been named, who had been her hero long before Pol, was somewhere in the castle below, stabbed with a point that had been polished for nineteen years. 

Fool, Pol, to hurt his mother; fool, Pol, to take her own offer of sympathy and indulge himself in rage. "Cruelty and disloyalty suit you well," she hissed. _"You're right."_

She too could lance him through.


End file.
